Fire officers: We have no trucks

If you live on the North Coast, and your house is on fire, chances are your house – and the entire village you live in – could burn to the ground while you wait on a fire truck to respond to your call.

This, according to Fire Officers’ Association president, Leo Ramkissoon, is because several fire stations, including four in the north, have no fire trucks.

Ramkissoon made the statement yesterday at a rally yesterday of firemen who walked from the Morvant Fire Station to the San Juan Fire Station. He said, up to press time yesterday, up to seven of the 11 fire stations in northern Trinidad are not able to respond to calls because fire trucks were either not working, or the fire stations simply do not have any.

After a march led by Ramkissoon and including several NGOs, citizens and fire officers he said the fire stations – which include the fire stations in Woodbrook, Santa Cruz and Chaguaramas – are not responding to calls from the public because of the shortage.

“This is an issue that directly affects the public,” said Ramkissoon, “Today as we speak we have four stations in this division alone, out of 11 stations, without fire trucks. Some days over the last month alone there were seven stations which were without a truck to respond to the needs of the public, and that is a cause for concern.”

Ramkissoon said yesterday’s walk was the second of several intended to highlight the issues facing the Fire Service.

He said the first walk, from the Point Fortin Fire Station, was supported by NGOs, community members, social justice groups and other non-governmental bodies.

“Officers feel that they have a duty of care to the public to make sure that the public is aware. We have tried every avenue diplomatically to have discussions and make representations for these issues to be addressed without success, and now officers are mandating the association that we bring it to the public’s attention in the best possible way and give them the opportunity to call on their members of Parliament and other stakeholders who are ultimately in charge of the country and the resources.”

Ramkissoon added that, because of the shortage of equipment, the fire service was not equipped to respond to a natural disaster. He said the effect of the lack of equipment could be seen in the Greenvale (flooding) disaster, and the earthquake last year.

“Fire officers were crying out at that time because our search and rescue unit, which is the unit which responds to rescue people in floods and other scenarios, are ill-equipped.

“Our training, our overseas training, which would have increased the capabilities of the service, have been severely diminished. It seems that all funding has been cut. It seems that the stakeholders are willing to compromise on the public’s safety.”

Speaking yesterday at the post-Cabinet briefing on the issues Ramkissoon pointed out, National Security Minister Stuart Young said he was not aware of those issues and said if there were any at all facing the security services, the association heads had his number.

He said the association head had not called him on the matter, nor had anyone given him an official report of any shortage.

But Ramkissoon said if he was not informed of the situation, then it was a bad sign for the ministry’s management of the fire service’s affairs.

“That statement in itself is an indictment on any minister,” said Ramkissoon, “The minister does not have the luxury of managing the fire service from the text message of the association president...When you have seven fire stations not responding out of 11, and the minister does not know about it, that is not acceptable at all.

Last year, according to Ramkissoon, there were over 4,000 emergency calls to the Fire Service, of which half were bush fires.